1). Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for opting-in to a phone-on-file relationship for purposes of billing a consumer.
2). Discussion of Related Art
A consumer who shops for goods or services online may often be given the option to use a selection of payment sources during checkout, such as payment by credit card, debit card, payment from an account held by an institution, or to charge for a purchase on their phone bill. When the consumer selects to charge to their phone bill, a merchant server instructs a billing server which is aligned with a carrier server to carry out the charge. The billing server usually communicates with a consumer mobile phone to confirm the charge before placing the charge on the phone bill at the carrier server.
When the billing server communicates with a consumer mobile phone the billing server often transmits a PIN code to the consumer mobile phone. The consumer then has to enter the PIN code into a user interface of the merchant server. This is a requirement by the carrier server because the carrier server usually requires to confirm the charge with the consumer mobile phone. Such a process may be arduous for many consumers who make many purchases from a particular merchant, in which case the purchase may be lost to the merchant.